Hello, this isn’t going to be a super official looking thread but I thought I’d make a post on here in the hopes of getting any of the original L4D mappers attention due to the nature of this project.

So what I call the “Alpha Rooftop Project” is my attempt to re-create the original No Mercy Rooftop map seen in the few early 2007 (Possibly late 2006) screenshots we have available, this is a very difficult project as there’s only half a dozen or so screenshots ever released showing it off and I’m pretty sure a few are from different builds of the map so that makes it even more difficult to nail down a specific theme so coming on here I hope any of the original mappers for L4D (If they’re still around) would be able to shed some light on this and provide much needed information. Currently this is a for-fun hobby project I’m doing in my spare time and I’m not even sure I’ll ever finish it but I’m hoping with more information it should lighten the load.

So I guess I’ll show my most recent progress, it’s nothing jaw-dropping but I’m proud of how much I’ve done with so little I have.

but not enough to know how everything was set up. Any insight on what was over there, where the pipes start and stop at, and the general layout would be very helpful. I know based on the hanging Zoey screenshot that the back part of the layout stayed pretty much the same but after that the entire rest of the left side is unknown to me:

The other areas I’m not so clear on is what the inside of the generator room looked like besides the generator and what the right side of the roof looked like because though we do have information on that it isn’t perfect and many blind spots still remain. I’ve done my best to put it together based on the few screenshots that show slivers of it but some pro info would be great.

This last screenshot raises a question, why that one vent prop between the white cylinder and the radio the relay pole is raised so high, this was still during the “flat” period of the roof and if you look at the original building shown in the falling tank image

Lastly (I think) the inside of the elevator building and I guess the entire starting area isn’t shown off at all other than a small bit showing inside the vent so I’m very interested in how that was originally pulled off. I assume the entire starting area pretty much stayed the same or at least the geometry and props were just changed over the years but I’m not sure. Below I’ve made an attempt on what I think it would have been but correct me if I’m wrong.

One last final thing before I finish up here, I mentioned how I found the tower on Death Toll, were any other parts for the original rooftops re-used elsewhere in the retail game? Maybe you can confirm it but the storage shed in Dead Air not only bares close resemblance to the generator building in both the size and shape but the roof also looks like it matches with its height and slope.

So if there’s any other areas or pieces that were pretty much re-used 1:1 that would be great to know.

Anyhow that’s it for now, it’s a lot of information to dump but I’ve been working on this for awhile now and have been dumping it in a Discord I run so going from a month of posting findings and progress into a single forum post is definitely a change of pace. If any of the original devs or mappers could lend any information that would be an extreme help to this project, best case scenario is someone going “Hey, we still have the map here take it or Hey, here’s some unreleased screenshots that show more” but I won’t get my hopes up, I’d even take someone drawing a crude layout in ms paint if it could help me figure this out so any information provided is a big help.

There’s a couple other things that have been on my mind that I’ve been picking other people’s brains on, one thing that might be a huge help on the general layout.

One screenshot that shows Louis looks like the top corner of the roof behind the helipad but compared to retail the trim of the edge of the building seems closer and it looks like a vent or some prop is blocking the path.

As you can see in retail everything is a bit farther out which thanks to whatever the metalic thing is in the old screenshot it helps to show how far apart everything was. Even with that knowledge the rest of the left border is a mystery. I’m not even sure if the back part has that extrusion:

It may have just been straight in the back but then the front and back symmetry wouldn’t be there anymore.

With what little we have we know the back is straight going up the left side and thanks to the hanging Zoey image we can see that the top left angles in, I guess the issue still is how the middle portion of the left side was shaped and nothing we have can help.

There was one more thing I wanted to ask about, where you guys got the skyboxes. Not only for the alpha rooftop but for No Mercy altogether, I assume you guys didn’t have the time to go out and take multiple images of a city vista so were all of them images you guys stumbled on or were they taken from another game seeing as how they weren’t kept in retail? Hell, if you still knew where to get them I would be indebted and I’m sure the rest of the community would be interested in the ones used in the other maps. Anyhow, that’s it, going to do a bit more tweaking and hopefully I’ll have more to show off but progress is a bit slow when it’s mostly taking an educated guess at everything.

So yeah, again, I’m very very proud of how this is turning out so far. After taking a step back and looking at the length of the generator building I noticed it is way too long and if you look in the falling Tank screenshot the white cylinder tank is visible from that angle.

What all this tells me is that the entire front part of the roof needs to be pulled back more which should eliminate a ton of wasted space and will correct the length of the generator building. With all that said more stuff to come!

So this isn’t strictly related to the rooftop map itself but this is very freakin’ cool. So I was trying to locate the skybox used during the alpha stage of the rooftop but stumbled on something else, something I believe points to the city you guys (TRS) used for early 2007 media. I don’t think this image I found is the original used because the lighting of the buildings is a bit off unless you guys did that by hand but I’m pretty damn sure this is the real deal.

Below is the screenshot I’m basing this on, the image I found, my Frankenstein edit before I figured out it was all one chunk, and the one chunk edit. Since you guys haven’t said anything my current theory is that you guys ordered a giant poster or mural of this image since it’s on a poster website, took a large picture, and edited it that way. Anyhow, here it is.